1890s Rants - Free Seed Program: Good Intentions and Greed

1905

This is a good story. I enjoyed the people mouthing off about the waste, the injustice, and the humbuggery that developed within the government free seed program over its long history! I've put off addressing this admittedly interesting bit of seed history as it is a complex political story.   However, my folder of bits and pieces of the story keeps getting fatter so I'll share some of them here. If you are interested in this sort of political shenanigans there are modern books that cover it in a more thorough and organized way. 

First, a succinct history of the program, which is much older than all the blather I collected led me to believe, is presented in this snippet from The Greatest Service to Any Country, an article by Marguerite Gilstrap in the 1961 Yearbook of Agriculture.

Henry L. Ellsworth

Henry L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents, had wide support in 1838 when he asked the Congress to appropriate money for collecting and distributing seeds. Agricultural societies, which were dedicated to the introduction of superior varieties and completely new crops, helped Ellsworth distribute the seeds and plants sent by consuls and naval officers. Congressmen distributed some of the seeds.

Ellsworth wrote: "Inventors are sanguine in the belief (and probably not without reason) that the time is not far distant when ploughing machines will be driven by steam, and steam power applied to many other operations of the husbandryman. . . A subject intimately connected with this is the aid which husbandry might derive from the establishment of a regular system for the selection and distribution of seeds of the choicest varieties for agricultural purposes."

The Congress responded in 1839 by appropriating one thousand dollars of fees collected by the Patent Office to support his work in agriculture. Part of the money was allotted to the collection of information on agriculture in the 1840 census. The remainder was for collecting and distributing seed.

Thus began the distribution of free seeds, an activity that continued until 1923 and supplied Americans, through their Congressmen, with billions of packages of seeds. Most of them were seeds of vegetables and flowers, but also included were seeds of sorghums, sugar beets, soybeans, and many others.

April 16, 1895 - St. Louis Globe-Democrat, reprinted in The Florist

A sensation will be made by Secretary Morton's promised disclosures respecting the sale by Congressmen of seeds bought with public money and intended for free distribution among their constituents. It appears that this business has been conducted for an indefinite period on a scale so extensive that the wonder is why it should not have occasioned scandals before now. Many members of the House have made a regular practice year after year of disposing of their entire quotas for cash to brokers.  A quota is 15,000 packages. One broker offered to Representative Hatch, of Missouri, whose district is agricultural, 60,000 packages in one batch, at $2.50 per 1,000. This is about one-sixth of their actual cost to Uncle Sam. Seeds are commonly sold directly or indirectly by Congressmen from urban districts to others whose constituencies are rural.

The man who conducted the investigation of this matter at the instance of Secretary Morton was Enos S. Harnden, buyer of seeds for the Department of Agriculture. He caused it to be known that he was desirous of purchasing seeds on his own private account if he could get them cheap from Congressmen. One broker. whose confidence was gained, entertained an impression that Mr. Harnden wished to use the seeds for political purposes, with a view of securing an election to Congress for himself. The situation was certainly unique. The seeds which Mr. Harnden had purchased for the Government at market rates he subsequently bought again from members of the House at a small fraction of their actual cost. Notwithstanding the evident profit in this enterprise, he let pass offers aggregating 100,000 packages.

In truth, Government seeds were found to be a drug on the market.  Brokers had whole cellars full of them stored away in stacks. One of them offered Mr. Harnden 30,000 packages of last year’s seeds at an incredibly low figure, because they were somewhat damaged, mice having got into them.    Another dealer was ready to sell three full quotas at $150 per quota —i. e., at the rate of 1 cent a package. But the richest case was that of a Representative whose name is withheld for the present by Secretary Morton. It will be made public soon, together with the rest of the data. The story, as told by Mr. Harnden is as follows:

STORY OF THE SALES.

“I was called upon the telephone by an official of the House. He said that he had heard that I was purchasing seeds. Would I like to buy a quota? I replied: ‘What is the price?‘ The answer was, $75. I said that I would close the bargain, but must know the Congressman’s name in order that I might make sure that the quota had not been drawn from the Department of Agriculture. The name being given, I sent over to the seed barn and found that the quota was there all right. Having ascertained this I called up the official over the telephone and told him I would take the seeds. I asked him to get the Congressman to make out an order transferring the quota direct to me. There was some demur at this, the official suggesting that it would be just as well that the order should assign the seeds to himself, and he could indorse it for me. But I insisted that the deal must be strictly ‘above ground and honorable,‘ and that the order should be straight. So he sent the order in the form I requested, which was what I required for evidence. I paid the $75 with a check to the order of the Congressman, and now have that check with his own endorsement in my possession. Thus the case is made complete.

"Whereas there was plenty of evidence in a general way of the prevalence of this abuse, we desired to make out in complete shape a typical case in which a Congressman sold for money the seeds which were received by him from the Government for free distribution. The law expressly provides that the seeds shall be distributed among the constituents of the respective Representatives. Thus the transfer of seeds by one member to another is wholly illegal. Yet we have record of more than 100 transfers of this kind. One member wrote to the department the other day inclosing a paper which assigned to him the quota of another member. We replied that the other member had no seeds to transfer, inasmuch as he had already drawn them all out. Whereupon the applicant rejoined that he must have the seeds, inasmuch as he had already paid the other member for them. Where such transfers between Congressmen are made, it is not uncommon for the agricultural member to give public documents in exchauge for the seeds of the city member. Yet the law allots the seeds to the district and not to the men representing it. They belong to the people of the district, and are not the personal property of the Congressman.


EXTENT of THE TRAFFIC.

"Here are figures that show that in 1894: 9,555,000 packages of seeds were purchased and put up by Uncle Sam for distribution by members of the House, at a total expense of $127,708.   In view of the practice prevailing, it is no wonder that Government seeds are a drug in the market. I let pass offers that were made to me of 100,000 packages of this year's seeds, merely because the evidence relating to their sale by the Representative would not have been complete. These 100,000 packages were represented by Congressmen‘s orders held by brokers, who offered to assign them to me. One member actually came to me to buy seeds. He was from a rural district and had not enough to go round among his constituents. He had received offers of quotas at $8 per 1,000, and desired to know if that was an excessive price.

“The quota which I purchased for $75 was certainly a bargain. It consisted of 14,950 packages of vegetable seeds, 1,365 packages of flower seeds and eighty-two packages of field seeds - corn, grass and clover. The total was 16,397 packages, which cost the Government $14- per 1.000. So you will see that Uncle Sam paid about $228 for what I got from the Congressman for $75.

"I have had queer experiences sometimes. Not long ago we decided to buy a lot of lentil seeds, in order that farmers in this country might make experiments in growing lentils, which are a profitable and useful crop in Europe. Incidentally, it was very desirable to know something about this vegetable, in order that we might give information as to the methods of cultivating it and ways of preparing it for the table. We had no knowledge on the subject, but I learned that a certain physician in charge of a sanitarium at Battle Creek had grown lentils and knew all about them. So I wrote to him. His reply was delayed for some time, which was not surprising in view of what I subsequently learned. Evidently he did not possess the information, for he wrote to the Scientific American to get it. The Scientific American referred the matter to its Washington correspondent, suggesting that he go to the Department of Agriculture for advice.

"Meanwhile I had been looking up lentils on my own account. I got a lot of valuable data from Vilmorin, the eminent French seedsman. In short, I had the material all ready for the correspondent of the Scientific American when he called. He sent it to his paper, which forwarded it to the physician at Battle Creek, without telling him where it came from. The physician thereupon sent back to me my own answers to my own questions.

REASON FOR SEED DISTRIBUTION.

“The alleged reason for distributing seeds gratis among the farmers is that they may have an opportunity to obtain new and fresh varieties, tending to the improvement 0t agriculture. Of course, as a matter of fact, the whole business is for political purposes solely. Congressmen find it useful to throw sops in the shape of free seeds to their constituents. Hence the enormous annual appropriations for this purpose. The appropriation last year was $160,000. The truth is that the farmers have opportunity to get the best seeds of all sorts in the open market. Such seeds may be purchased in the stores of every city, town and village throughout the country. In fully four fifths of the towns of a population of more than 200 there are merchants who make a specialty of garden and field seeds in bulk or in packages. There are, more over, 152 seeds men in the country who issue catalogues that are mailed to farmers and gardeners in all the States.

For a long time past the department has been used as a dumping ground for seedsmen who had stocks of seeds which they were afraid to send to market gardeners or other good customers. The practice of the department until recently has been to divide up the appropriation among the seedsmen, who charged pretty much what they chose. Under the present Administration this matter has been reformed, and we purchase our seeds from the lowest bidders, requiring that they shall come up to a certain standard and be free from seeds of weeds and the larvae of injurious insects.

"It would be an extremely useful thing to the farmers if Congress would appropriate $15,000 for the purpose of making tests of varieties of seeds and naming them, in order that the present confusion and multiplication of alleged varieties might be done away with. The results obtained could be published in a series of farmers’ bulletins."

The following condemnation is four years later and  is by the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, referred to by the previous writer...

...Go Morton!!!

THE FREE SEED HUMBUG

From Hon. J. Sterling Morton, 

Ex. Secretary of Agriculture

Arbor Lodge, Nebraska City. ) Otoe County, Neb.

Responding to yours of yesterday:— Gratuitous, promiscuous distribution of seeds among a few of the seventy odd millions taxpayers of the United States, at the expense of all the taxpayers, is an undemocratic, anti-republican misuse and waste of money. Taxation should be equal, but it is unequal when the majority are forced to pay for free seeds for the minority. 

If there was any excuse at all for the custom when Mr. Ellsworth inaugurated it, it was in the intent as stated by the law—to introduce new, valuable and rare varieties of seeds from foreign lands to the United States. But, after a half century, an advertisement—by the Secretary of Agriculture—asking for proposals to furnish rare and valuable seeds not common to this country, induced no offers of such seeds. And so, under the advice of the Attorney General of the United States, that Secretary of Agriculture bought no seeds for Congressional or other free and promiscuous dissemination.  

Then Congress, under the hypnotism and direction of Senators from Missouri, Kansas, Dakota, Nevada, and other States, distinguished for their speedy germination of economists and law-givers, amended the seed scattering statute so as to compel the Department of Agriculture to purchase ordinary garden seeds for free sowing by Congressmen among their respective constituencies to the amount of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth each year.  

Immediately the Secretary of Agriculture complied with the amended law, and carload after carload was delivered to Senators and Representatives from the storehouses of Landreth Sons.  Enough was delivered to cost the Government tens of thousands of dollars for their transportation through the mails—enough to illustrate the absurdity of the gift-package enterprise. But the old-fashioned method of buying seeds in bulk, shipping them into the Department at Washington, and then employing "the sisters, the cousins and the aunts" of statesmen to make paper pockets, fill them with seed and paste them, was abolished. This erasure of a patronage which furnished two hundred persons with places on the payrolls was a shock to many affectionate and benevolent legislators, who regarded the seed division as the most fitting place upon which to billet "relations," both near and remote.  

The denunciations of the effacement of so many places for planting favorites and incompetents where they would yield a salary, illumine numbers of the Congressional Record, and are really among the choicest reading of that encyclopedia which contains so much majestic misinformation. However, under the amended law there were more seeds and fewer jobs for distribution. Under the old system all the dead, ungermanitivc refuse of the seed dealers of the country was sold to the Department, and there packed and labeled at an expense generally equal to, and often more than, the cost of the seed. And all the money thus invested was, as a rule, wasted. 

Under the new method the seedsman who has the contract must put up his own name on each packet. That fixes the responsibility for the quality sent out. Moreover, under the new system there is scientific and vigorous inspection by a seed expert of the Department, by which the germanitive and pure quality of the seed is determined. Under the old way there was no scientific inspection.

But the old way and the new way arc bad ways. There is no reason why the Government should distribute new or old varieties of vegetable and flower seeds gratuitously among the people any more than there is reason for its sending gifts of the eggs of improved poultry, or donations of bulls, boars and stallions among the farmers of the United States.  

The practice is an outrage upon those who raise seed to sell. It is an outrage for the Government, under any sort of an administration, to put public funds into seed gratuities which are to be distributed in competition with the legitimate producers and dealers in the same article.  

But it is particularly, glaringly, grotesquely inconsistent for a party which preaches "protection" against the importation of the products of "pauper labor," and which, under the great revenue-rendering Dingley Bill, puts a big duty on foreign garden seeds, flower seeds, and bulbs bred in ignorance from the pauper fields of Europe, to back with the National Treasury the indiscriminate distribution of seeds without price, seeds Congressional, seeds Departmental, in competition with seeds for sale by honest, hard-working seed producers and dealers, who are not foreigners but citizens of the United States, whose "infant industry" asks no protection except from competition with the donations of a putrid paternalism. 

J. Sterling Morton. 

[The editor of Our Visitor trusts every reader will, after reading this article, write a letter to his Congressman or Senator insisting on the repeal of this law, which is an outrage, and always has been.]

1898 - Our Horticultural Visitor, Volume 4

The following articles  might be of interest to you.

Against Free Seeds

The American Seed Trade Association which met in Cincinnati last June, adopted resolutions denouncing the present method of free distribution of seeds by the government as unfair to the taxpayers in the United States at large, unfair to the seed trade and extravagant and wasteful use of public money to the extent of $300,000 annually. 

Farmers in the United States now are generally able to buy their own seed.

1895 - Our Horticultural Visitor: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the                   

Horticultural Interests of Illinois in General and the Southern Portion in Particular

Here is a late opinion from 1897,  Ranche and range. (North Yakima, Wash.)

 

1906- from somewhere.  I forgot to note where!

IMPORTANT ACTION BY THE WHOLESALE SEEDSMEN'S LEAGUE.

Bristol, Pennsylvania, April 3, 1909. 

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Wholesale Seedsmen’s League in New York City, April 1st, the following motions were offered and passed, and on the next day mailed to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Agriculture. 

BURNET LANDRETH,

Secretary, Wholesale Seedsmen's League.

Resolved, That the Board of Directors of the Wholesale Seedsmen's League deplore the constantly, increasing tendency to swell the amount expended by the United States Department of Agriculture for the purpose of purchase and distribution of common varieties of garden seeds. 

The Board respectfully suggests to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Agriculture that a considerable saving or retrenchment in the expenses of the Government could be made by the abolishment of such appropriation without in any way impairing the effectiveness of the Department of Agriculture; and that a further considerable saving to the Government could be effected by relieving the Post Office Department of the expenses incurred in the carrying and distribution of the enormous quantity of franked seeds sent out by the Department of Agriculture. 

The Board is of the opinion that the free distribution of common varieties of garden seeds and field seeds is of no practical value to the farmers and gardeners of this country, but, to the contrary, is a downright injustice and restraint of trade inflicted upon the seed business. The Board believes that a continuance of this practice certainly does not tend towards the best development of the nation, as it encourages a dependence upon the Government, which is entirely foreign to the feelings and patriotism of the American people. 

Resolved, That while the Wholesale Seedsmen's League, as an organization, and its members individually, raise no objection whatever to the fair testing of seeds of grasses, clovers, and other farm seeds, for the purpose of determining if they are adulterated or misbranded, the Association and its members do object to the methods of the agents of the Department of Agriculture of the United States in obtaining Such samples for test, as being unfair to the seed merchants and growers, in that the merchants and growers have no knowledge that the samples so reported upon actually came from them.   It seems to the Seedsmen's League but fair that the agent obtaining the samples should leave the merchant or grower a portion of that identical sample under Governmental seal, as provided in the case of testing milk, fertilizers, etc., under the laws of the State of New York and other a States.

1909 - Horticulture, Volume 9

From Washington comes the news that the senate committee on agriculture has eliminated the appropriation to provide garden seeds for members of congress to distribute to their constituents. 

But don’t become unduly excited.  Several chances there will be to restore the provision. We’ll probably get our free seeds again next spring. 

Last year after the senate had passed the agricultural appropriation bill without free seeds the item was reinserted by the conference committee and passed both houses—hence the free seeds we have just planted. 

This hoary graft, retained because of its supposed vote getting power has long been a reproach. Now it is a joke of enormous proportions as well. It does seem that congress should have honesty enough and sense enough to drop it.

1914 - The Nebraska Farmer, April

It lasted until 1924.

Langley free-seed bill : hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Sixty-eighth Congress, first session on H.R. 602 ... a bill authorizing the distribution of free seeds, January 16 and 17, 1924